In Israel the transition to going cashless has just started to take shape and there’s still a long road ahead. According to ‘Bank of Israel’, the annual cash volume for 2017 was 73 Billion Israeli New Shekels. On the other hand, Europe is leading the world with cashless transactions and because I work for a top European acquiring bank, I had no doubt that when my family and I booked a ticket to see Messi at ‘Camp Nou,’ I would be touching down in Barcelona without a cent to my name.

Being one of the 32 million tourists per year in Barcelona, I was comfortable about landing cashless at the airport and confident about finding our way to the city center. The bus station from the airport to ‘Placa de Catalunya’ has buses leaving every 10 minutes and although paying cash on the bus was an option, we tried to pay by card through the machine, but our American issued card was declined. Luckily, my father had some change and we ended up paying cash which was not the best way to start this cashless experience.

Even though our cashless journey had a disappointing start I found out that there are many ways to pay cashless in the Catalan capital, and it doesn’t all have to be by card. Phones and e-wallets are often used, as well as payment-enabled jewelry (rings and bracelets), such as the Visa and NBG collaboration with Folli Follie. Even the Barcelona founded art, design and music festival, Sónar, went cashless with the SonarCashless wristband.

In bustling cities like Barcelona, speed is essential. Metro and Subway tickets are sold by cash or card through machines, including the busiest stations, making the experience time and cost efficient for the 500 million annually transported passengers. Even my taxi driver preferred getting payed by card and pulled out his wireless credit card machine, making me feel like I’m in the future since this is not common in Israel.

Small payments, for example food, water, or gift shop purchases was the coolest experience for me. It was the first time I used my card’s ‘contactless Tap to Pay’ feature. Since contactless payments do not require a signature or a PIN, I was able to make payments up to 20 euros. Contactless payment transactions have an amount limitation depending on the country and issuing bank of the card.

Another thing to consider about the cashless experience is exchange rates. Since my issuing bank is outside the EU, I nearly ended up paying a lot more because of the exchange rate on the international transactions but, my fiancé discovered that we can save a lot of money by paying all the transactions in USD.

Back in 1661, Sweden was the first European country to introduce paper money, while today the Scandinavian country has almost made the full transition to becoming cashless and is on its way to becoming the first nation to go completely cash-free. Naturally, this should have a positive effect on financial crime rates (tax evasion, money laundering, counterfeiting and corruption). However, ditching cash raises concerns that not everyone is ready for a digital or cashless economy, for example, card fraud causes ten times more damage than counterfeit notes according to Deutsche Bank economist, Heike Mai.

In an increasingly cashless world, Barcelona is amazing and beautiful, the people are nice, and the city is filled with art and culture. Besides the cold weather that I am not used to and some convenient stores that had a minimum amount for swiping cards, my cashless experience was a great success. It’s clear, that as we start to understand that traveling cashless is truly efficient and beneficial and the industry continues to produce tools preventing illegal activities like Fraud and money laundering, paper money will one day be a vague memory of the past.

In the Sales Operations Department I create a tailor-made experience for our new and existing partners with specialized processes. Feel free to leave a comment or contact me if you want to learn more about how we can help.

Got the post holiday blues? Why be blue when you can be sunshine yellow with a spectacular winter-sun destinations?

With our partner Kiwi.com, one of Europe’s leading online travel agencies, the hot burning sun is just a flight away! Don’t know where to go? Don’t worry, they’ve got you covered. Check out this amazing list of hot, hot, hot destinations and keep those blues away for good this winter!

We think of chargebacks as being a modern inconvenience and a feature of commercial dealings. Yet, documents dating as far back as 1800 BCE show that the concept was already in existence in ancient times. To avoid being accused of theft – an offence punishable by death back then – sellers and buyers demanded and carefully preserved receipts and title deeds. If it was proven that the goods (even those purchased in a legitimate sale) were stolen, the buyer had an obligation to return them to the original owner, but also had a right to charge back the seller.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday officially open the holiday season. Combined, they have become one of the best shopping periods of the entire calendar year. Originally a US-focused phenomenon, this obsession to ‘find the best deals’ has spread like wildfire across the globe. In recent years, this weekend has become the optimal time for merchants to increase their sales and generate strong profits by offering customers some great deals both in stores and online.

Online travel is a competitive business with tight margins. All the hard work building brand and attracting customers can be thrown off course if users experience problems or transactions don’t go through quickly and consistently.

We are so proud that not one, but two of Credorax’s super women have been shortlisted for the European Women in Payments (EWPN) Awards. France Blanchard, Senior Vice President Business Operations, is up for ‘The Payments Woman of the Year‘ award.

While our Vice President Product, Lital Bar Noy, is nominated for EWPN’s ‘The Young Innovator’ Award.

This month, Credorax has been spotlighted by PaymentEye to share its wisdom on cross-border ecommerce’s effect on PSPs. Below are a few important takeaways from the article we thought you would enjoy. To read the full article, visit: www.paymenteye.com.

Retail Sales, All-Time High

Retail sales worldwide are at an all-time high. According to data from eMarketer, total retail sales hit $22 trillion worldwide in 2016, up 6% over 2015. That figure is estimated to exceed $27 trillion by 2020 (excluding travel, event ticket and restaurant sales).

Retail sales are growing too – although the growth rate is predicted to peak at 6.3% in 2017, trending downwards towards the end of the 2010s, the market is expected to deliver strong numbers over the next five years.

Ecommerce Makes up Majority of Growth

Although overall growth is slowing in line with the rest of the retail market, ecommerce is predicted to make up an increasingly large proportion of total retail sales.

Accounting for 7.4% of that total in 2015, retail ecommerce sales across all devices will reach $2.3 trillion worldwide in 2017, rising to a whopping $4 trillion by 2020 (representing 14.6% of total retail sales).

A growing proportion of this trade is cross-border. As tech advances make it easier for merchants to market to customers beyond their domestic borders, the pressure for merchant acquirers to deliver fast, secure and cost-efficient cross-border payments is higher than ever.

PSPs should be able to service the cross-border needs of their merchants if they are to stay competitive. Merchants now expect to pay least-cost routing and local fees for cross-border transactions at minimum. PSPs must have in-depth knowledge of regional preferences and compliance regulations. In addition, merchants expect the lowest costs and transparent pricing models as standard. While an acquirer can’t solve every cross-border issue that arises, selecting the right one can definitely enable their cross-border goals.

Acquirer Checklist: The Essentials Every PSP Should Look For

Cross-border reliability: seamless connection of the PSP’s merchants to cross-border

Knowledge of cross-border commerce: an understanding of regional preferences, rules, and new regulations.

Multi-device: full cross-channel international sales, enabling merchants to connect and sell to customers on every type of device – especially mobile.

Risk protection: ecommerce risk and fraud should be safeguarded against risks, and the latest threats to mobile commerce understood.

Flexibility: support a wide range of payment methods and ability to deliver an updated service in response to new market trends.

The cross-border ecommerce market provides a unique opportunity for PSPs to move beyond their traditional roles by providing cross-border options for their merchants, but partnering with the right merchant acquirer must be the first step.

To learn more about selecting the right merchant acquirer, download PSPs: Why Does Your Choice of Acquirer Determine Future Success at Paymenteye.com here.

To date, the merchant onboarding process to an acquirer has been time-consuming, inflexible and costly. The biggest cause of delays and frustration is the overwhelming amount paperwork that needs to be completed.

As an acquirer dedicated to customer advocacy and operational efficiency, we decided to share with you, our merchants and partners, how putting together a merchant application properly for the acquiring bank can save time and headaches. The result should be an application that is successfully processed and approved by acquirer in a timely manner.

As a merchant, you need to know that it is critical for your business to follow local laws and regulations. It is highly recommended that you include all business-related licenses as a part of your application. Note that some types of products are subject to more regulation than others, therefore the set of documents might vary by country and industry.

No less important is to ensure that you include all the detailed information about your business to further speed up the application. For example, with regards to the company name, fill in the full legal name, including the type of business entity it is (e.g., a limited company – Ltd.).

With the above in mind, here are our top five tips for filing in an approval-winning merchant onboarding application:

TIP 1: Be clear about your business model.
Provide all the relevant up-to-date information up front, to avoid assumptions and requests for additional information from the acquirer. If your website is under construction or still in beta, let the acquiring bank have access to your business plan and/or a beta version of your website.

TIP 2: Emphasize risk mitigation procedures and policies.
Present your internal AML and fraud policies together with other risk mitigation procedures to the acquiring bank. Merchants having proper risk processes in place score more points with the acquirer and might be considered for lower collateral requirements.

TIP 3: Highlight cardholder and affiliate KYC checks.
Existing cardholder and KYC check procedures should be highlighted at the onboarding stage. Sound KYC checks on both cardholders and affiliates leave less room for fraudulent transactions.

TIP 4: Present transaction monitoring solutions.
There are third-party services that keep tabs on transactions for any issues, analyze transactions to determine risk exposure, and manage fraud and chargebacks in relation to the acquirer and card scheme thresholds. Great merchants account for these potential issues and have plans in place to manage them.

TIP 5: Provide clear explanation of service fulfillment period.
Merchants that offer more than one service may have more than one fulfillment period and anticipate a division in expected volumes. A detailed explanation of these fulfillment periods to the acquiring bank will help ease the onboarding process.

Let us know if you have any other tips on how to speed up this process. Contact us at grow@credorax.com

Are you watching the world grow more connected before your eyes? It’s only natural that online merchants see this growth as an opportunity. Increasingly, it is becoming vitally important that online merchants be fully prepared to sell not only “locally” but also to reach into cross-border commerce. PYMNTS.com has been studying factors that separate the most successful cross-border merchants from the rest of the pack. They recently published their quarterly index, which not only shares recent news but also compares 2016 to previous years.

At Credorax, our core values drive our daily work. As a technology company, innovation, ambition and exacting execution keep us ahead of the pack. But equally important are the “old-fashioned” values of integrity and communication, which have allowed us to build teams that are imbued with trust and ready to do our best for every client, big or small.

Welcome to Smart Acquiring
Credorax is an entirely new breed of acquirer focused specifically on the ecommerce arena. That means that we've developed all of our payment processing services with you, the online merchant, in mind!

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